The processing of exposed photographic film has traditionally occurred in a darkroom setting. The film cassette containing the exposed photographic film is brought into the darkroom and all sources of light are extinguished prior to opening the film cassette and extracting the exposed film strip. Once extracted, the exposed film strip is prepared for developing and is thereafter chemically treated to produce photographic negatives or positives.
Darkroom settings for preparing and developing photographic film strips are employed by both small-scale and large-scale photoprocessing operations alike. In small-scale photoprocessing labs, the photoprocessor's attention can be devoted to the processing of single film strips with minimum risk of confusion or film strip misidentification. In large-scale photoprocessing operations, however, hundreds and perhaps thousands of film strips are received for processing each day. Because of the sheer volume of film involved, procedures for coordinating and keeping track of individual film strips must be implemented if large-scale photoprocessing facilities are to operate economically and efficiently. Typically, various photographic dealers will send film cassettes in individual customer envelopes to a single large-scale photoprocessing facility. The film cassettes are initially removed from the customer envelopes and opened at a film preparation site. The film strips contained in the opened cassettes are then extracted and spliced together to create long rolls of film suitable for bulk developing.
When numerous film strips from individual customer envelopes are spliced together for purposes of bulk developing, some means must be established to identify the individual film strips in the bulk roll. Negatives and photographic prints obtained from the individual film strips must then be matched with the appropriate customer envelopes at the conclusion of the film developing and printing steps. Systems heretofore constructed for ensuring that customer envelopes are properly matched with individual film strips at the end of bulk photoprocessing operations have utilized sequential envelope stacking or storage procedures in conjunction with sequential film strip identification procedures. That is, customer envelopes are serially stacked at the film preparation site, film cassettes associated with the customer envelopes are serially opened and film strips contained in the cassettes are serially spliced, all in the same order. Corresponding identification tags or marks are placed on both the individual film strips and the individual customer envelopes prior to the developing step.
Darkroom settings create special problems for the film preparation phase of large-scale photoprocessing operations. No light can be present when the film strips are extracted from the film cassettes for splicing, nor can any light reach film strips which have previously been spliced and wound onto the bulk roll. The imposition of darkroom conditions thus dictates that the steps of removing film cassettes from customer envelopes and stacking the envelopes in the order of splicing be carried out in the absence of light. As can be appreciated, such lack of light provides numerous opportunities for introducing error into the envelope stacking and film strip splicing sequences. Moreover, an operator working in the dark is frequently unable to detect and isolate film cassettes requiring specialized handling, i.e., film cassettes which are damaged or which contain film of a type other than the film already on the bulk reel.
In order to eliminate some of the foregoing problems associated with darkroom processing techniques, specialized equipment has been fabricated to perform the film cassette opening and film strip splicing steps in the film preparation phase of photoprocessing operations under lighted conditions. Apparatus such as the 110 Daylight Splicing machines manufactured by the assignee of the present invention complete the cassette opening step, the film strip extraction step and the film strip splicing step in a light-tight enclosure. The system operator need only remove the film cassette from the customer envelope and insert the film cassette in the machine. The customer envelope is placed beneath a printer and a start button is pressed, whereupon the film cassette is automatically opened, the film strip contained therein is extracted and spliced to the preceding film strip on the bulk reel, and identification numbers are marked on both the newly-spliced film strip and the customer envelope placed in the printer.
The ability to perform the cassette-opening and film strip splicing steps inside a light-tight enclosure allows the system operator to visually inspect each film cassette in adequate light outside the enclosure prior to initiating the film preparation phase of the photoprocessing operation. There is accordingly less opportunity for introducing error into the envelope stacking and film strip identification sequences. Nevertheless, the mechanisms required to automatically open film cassettes and extract film strips for splicing are relatively complex and significantly increase the cost of Daylight splicing machines in comparison to splicing machines used in conventional darkrooms. Given the desirability of reducing the complexity and cost of the overall photoprocessing operation, it would be of obvious benefit to develop a system which combines the visual inspection capabilities of a Daylight splicing machine with the simplicity and economy of manual darkroom splicing devices.